iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

A lot of government websites seemed to be down this weekend. I needed to look up my Selective Service number for something (a lot of fed sites seem to be requiring it now if you’re male) and that site was also “under maintenance” so I guess I’m trying again Monday.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 13h

At least Blacksky has its own app now

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 13h

Probably either “The Wizard of Oz” or “The Sound of Music”, as they tended to be on TV on or around Easter for some reason and we’d watch them while we were off school. But! It could also be this:

youtu.be

The Great Escape 1963 Intro/Title Sequence 1080p

YouTube video by Sam's TV Channel

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 14h

I definitely would have picked this up in the ‘80s if I had heard it back then.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 14h

“Adult Contemporary” was a pretty amorphous term back then too, but yeah, October Project probably fits better there. When I think of “New Age” I mostly think of instrumentals like George Winston’s piano pieces.

youtu.be

George Winston - Rain (Music Video)

YouTube video by George Winston

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 15h

Oh yeah, pelicans love ground effect. And they’re one of the few seabirds large enough to use it effectively.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 15h

(continued) therefore October 4, 1582 was followed by October 15, 1582. The new calendar was adopted by the Catholic countries of Europe, with other countries following over the next 350 years (the last European country to adopt the Gregorian calendar was Greece, in 1923.)

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 15h

444 years ago, Pope Gregory XIII introduced the “New Reformed Calendar”, now popularly known as the Gregorian Calendar. The new calendar involved a ten-day skip to adjust for calendrical drift regarding the date of the spring equinox since the adoption of the Julian calendar, (continued below)

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 15h

231 years ago, the National Convention of France ordered a young general from Corsica to put down a riot by royalist forces in Paris. He did so by bringing in artillery and firing grapeshot into the crowds. (Messy, but effective.) I speak, of course, of Napoleon Bonaparte.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 15h

202 years ago, Mexico became a federal republic with the adoption of the Constitution of 1824.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 15h

196 years ago, the Catholic provinces of the Netherlands issued a Declaration of Independence, which would lead to the formation of the Kingdom of Belgium. (Why “Belgium”? Well, that was one of the three parts Julius Caesar described Gaul being divided into in “De Bello Gallico”.)

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 15h

173 years ago, the Ottoman Empire declared war on the Russian Empire over the issue of Russia claiming sovereignty over Orthodox inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire. France and the UK supported the Ottoman cause in the conflict which became known as the Crimean War, after its primary venue.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 15h

150 years ago, the first public college in Texas, the Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Texas A&M University) opened.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 15h

143 years ago, the first consist of the Orient Express departed Paris for Istanbul. (The route would not be fully by rail until 1889 - this first run went as far as Romania by rail, with a ferry to Bulgaria, with a short rail link to the port of Varna, where the final link to Istanbul was by ship.)

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 15h

99 years ago, Gutzon Borglum made the first ceremonial cut on Six Grandfathers Mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota, better known to white people as Mount Rushmore. 131 years ago, Horace Rawlins won the first U.S. Open Golf Championship at Newport Country Club, Newport, RI.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 15h

90 years ago, 3,000 members of the British Union of Fascists attempted to march through the East End of London. Despite having a police escort twice their size, they ran into about 20,000 antifascists in the Cable Street neighborhood and got their asses handed to them in the Battle of Cable Street.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 15h

69 (nice) years ago, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. It orbited for 3 months, re-entering the atmosphere January 4, 1958.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 15h

61 years ago, Pope Paul VI became the first pope to visit the Americas, addressing the United Nations in New York. 68 years ago, the current constitution of France, the “Constitution of the Fifth Republic”, was adopted.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 15h

41 years ago, the Free Software Foundation was incorporated in Massachusetts. 56 years ago, Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose at the age of 27, just 16 days after Jimi Hendrix died of a barbiturate overdose, also at the age of 27. Hence the “27 Club” theory.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 15h

33 years ago, the Battle of Mogadishu ended with the arrival of an armored convoy of US and UN forces at the crash site of “Super 61”, one of the two helicopters shot down. (The second crash site had already been overrun by Somalian militia.)

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 15h

29 years ago, $17.3 million was taken from the vault at Loomis, Fargo & Company’s office in Charlotte, NC. This was the second largest all-cash robbery in US history, the first occurring 7 months earlier when $18.8 million was stolen from a Loomis, Fargo armored car. Both robberies were inside jobs.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 15h

20 years ago, the WikiLeaks website was established, though it did not publish anything until December 2006.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 15h

Today in history: Nine years ago, a team of US Special Forces and Nigerian gendarmes searching for Islamic State militants were ambushed near the village of Tongo Tongo by those very militants. 4 US soldiers and 4 gendarmes were killed.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 16h

Kind of like Ferdinand Marcos Jr. being the president of the Philippines. Everything old is new again.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 18h

Just a minor conspiracy

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 18h

The first 22 seconds of this video are how I experienced the 1989 Loma Prieta quake (better known as the World Series quake). I was in the back row of the classroom and basically flattened myself up against the wall as the ceiling started coming down, and hoped the building didn’t collapse.

youtu.be

California Earthquake

YouTube video by than217

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 18h

I have not, but I hope to soon.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 18h

I rarely saw it, as it was on at the same time as the Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Show which I much preferred. Saw it maybe twice if I was at a friend’s house on Saturday morning.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 18h

My only memory of the Bay City Rollers from that time was that they were part of the Krofft Superstar Hour on Saturday morning tv, which interspersed segments from Krofft shows like H.R. Pufnstuf with segments of the band doing wacky hijinks like the Monkees, and occasionally playing music.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 18h

Extending the analogy to another piece of fanfic that got published as a novel and then made into a movie, perhaps it should have been called 50 Shades of Rey?

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 21h

Except he works remotely so that’s not an explanation.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 21h

I was also in elementary school when this song came out, but I don’t recall hearing it back then. I remember Dusty Springfield’s original from oldies radio and Samantha Fox’s cover which came out my first year in university.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 04/10/2026

Also she had a lousy lawyer who didn’t introduce the evidence of abuse and such

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 04/10/2026

And then the comms team said “OMG NO WHY WOULD YOU POST THAT” and they said “I DO WHAT I WANT” and continued on their bullshit, so the comms team left/was fired?

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 04/10/2026

Reach out and touch whey

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 04/10/2026

Are you aware that the book was a reskinned Reylo fanfic? (Which makes it even funnier that Daisy Ridley's husband is the male lead.)

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 03/10/2026

Also, "rape" is very narrowly defined under North Carolina statutes as forced penis-in-vagina intercourse. Forced penetration with fingers or an object, forced oral sex, forced anal sex, that all falls under "sexual assault". We don't know what he did, but this person is clinging to the legal terms.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 03/10/2026

"sexual assault" in North Carolina law includes all forced sex acts other than penis-in-vagina, which is defined as rape. Many other states would consider several of the acts defined as assault in NC as rape. So without knowing what he did, you can only say that under the law he committed assault.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 03/10/2026

Name a song that came out while you were in elementary school that you still love as an adult. (really had to think about this one, there are *so* *many* good songs from that period)

youtu.be

Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way (Official Music Video) [HD]

YouTube video by Fleetwood Mac

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 03/10/2026

Much like if you have one Nazi sit down at a table with nine others, and none of the other nine leave, you really have ten Nazis.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 03/10/2026

I was wondering, I have been checking it periodically and nothing new had been posted since the Omens of Chaos giveaway, which seemed odd.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 03/10/2026

107 years ago, Cincinnati Reds pitcher Adolfo Luque became the first Latin American player to appear in the World Series. (He was the first Latin American player in the major leagues, too.) 163 years ago, Abraham Lincoln designated the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.

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Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org · 03/10/2026

94 years ago, the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq achieved independence from the United Kingdom. 97 years ago, Alexander I of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes announced that the country would henceforth be known as Yugoslavia (Land of the Southern Slavs).

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